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TMCnet Feature

September 02, 2014

Twitch Taken Down for Hours by Hacker Group's DDoS Attack

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By Oliver VanDervoort

Contributing Writer

While the Playstation Network (PSN) was the most publicized video game systems outage last week, there were other services being taken offline. Among those services, was apparently the online video streaming service known as Twitch. This particular service is known for only streaming videos of people playing video games and has become quite the giant in the industry.

The company has actually become such a giant, it was recently reported Amazon has decided to buy the service for a reported $970 million. On August 26, Twitch went offline for several hours and there are many in the industry who believe the cause of this outage can be directly tied the same kind of denial-of-service DDoS attacks Sony’s PSN fell victim to.

A hacker group calling itself Lizard Squad has apparently been trying to take out some of the biggest and most recognizable companies and websites in the video game world. The group claims it is doing this because these companies are not willing to pay them a “protection fee.” In other words, the group has been attempting to extort money from companies it sees as having deep pockets. There have since been some reports that throw into question whether Lizard Squad is actually behind any of the attacks, or whether they are just seizing on the outages to try and spread fear.

As for Twitch, the company would not confirm it had actually suffered a DDoS attack. On its Twitter (News - Alert) feed, the firm simply said it was currently investigating issues with the site while the outage was occurring. If Lizard Squad was responsible for the outage, it seems its motives were a bit more “Loki” and a little less bank robber against Twitch. The group claimed it would cease the attacks if users would tweet selfies with Lizard Squad written on their foreheads. Twitch returned to action after four ransom selfies were apparently offered up to the hacker group.